Royal Eggs

These mighty arms were taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_coat_of_arms_of_the_United_Kingdom#mediaviewer/File:Royal_Coat_of_Arms_of_the_United_Kingdom.svg

By appointment to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II:

I am hereby pleased to submit for Your Majesty’s pleasure, the work which Your Majesty decreed that I should carry out. Your most loyal subject, I obey.

Your Majesty, I have scoured Your vast realms to determine the best means by which one may soft boil an egg.

First, Your Majesty, I carry out the requisite steps to guarantee the academic integrity of this work. By Your wise decree Your Majesty forbade—upon great penalty—the most heinous crime of plagiarism. Thus, Your Majesty, I have undertaken to uncover the ancient culinary symbol of my House. This ancient culinary symbol, which I refer to as a “key” shall henceforth identify all original photography used in the submission to Your Majesty.

The author, posed with the ancient culinary arms of his House. Also posed with two eggs.

The ancient culinary symbol of my house, described in the old heraldry texts is as follows:

Upon a sock of barren white folded to half along its horizontal axis: elastic band to bind it along its middle, holding in place a spoon of silver, partially obscuring and bound by tape, one photograph of Premier the Twenty-Fifth of Ontario—most loyal— with chef jacket unbuttoned. Appearing from bottom left, most inconspicuous: an obscured sketch of a gas plant, near unrecognizable when compared to the gleam of the Premier’s chef jacket, unbuttoned.

A closer view of the ancient culinary arms of the author’s House.

I trust that this “key” shall serve to identify my work as unique. If any man has copied the ancient culinary symbol of my House, let him face me with his steel.

Returning, now, to the eggs, Your Majesty:

I sought the wisdom of an experienced chef to resolve Your Majesty’s burning question. I turned to Your Majesty’s loyal subject, Heston Blumenthal, a noted chef in your Realm. Through an exhaustive internet search I discovered Mr. Blumenthal’s video on cooking soft boiled eggs. I reproduce a link to said video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiUZzEbtwqw

Essentially, Mr. Blumenthal suggests that Your Majesty may place or cause to be placed a medium egg in a small pan filled with cold water.

Behold the grandeur of two eggs placed in cold water. Safety note: both the flame and the sock are off.

Your Majesty would then, if it should please Your Majesty, place or cause to be placed the pan on highest heat.

As soon as the water begins to boil, Your Majesty would remove or cause to be removed the pan from the heat source, allowing the egg to sit for exactly 6 minutes.  The residual heat from the pan and water will continue to cook the egg in that time.

Your Majesty could then dry or cause to be dried the egg in question.

The mighty egg sheds off the callous water.

The egg should at that point be ready for consumption. If the egg should displease Your Majesty, I am led to believe that a slight push of said egg from a wall would be of sufficient strength such that not even your finest men would be able to put it together again.

The eggs are ready to eat, Your Majesty.

This cooking method, I hasten to add, should be adequate in preparing up to 50 eggs. In truth, it would take more time to boil the cold water if there were 50 cold eggs in it, but, once boiled, it shouldn’t take much longer than six minutes to fully cook the eggs. The trouble comes with removing the eggs.

But everybody’s like Cristal, Maybach, diamonds on your timepiece. [Glorious photo from http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/11/20/article-2235753-16213159000005DC-658_964x690.jpg                            Glorious lyrics from Lorde, whose song “Royals” sympathizes with the troubles Your Majesty experiences in seeking a Royal Egg Recipe.

As Your Majesty will recognize, removing 50 eggs will take more time than one egg. Removing 500 eggs, on the other hand… Your Majesty would benefit from a good number of kitchen servants in such a case. The trouble is that any egg left too long in the water will overcook, and its beautiful runny yolk will harden. As such, it would be best to place the 500 eggs in a large basket so that it could be removed at once from the hot water. Your Majesty would require a large steam-jacket kettle to accommodate so many eggs.

A serving suggestion.

It would be my humble suggestion that a soft boiled egg could be enjoyed with sliced “fingers” of toast, tossed in olive oil and salt before being toasted. Though I am a simple man from one of Your Majesty’s colonies, I have taken some amount of pride in procuring English muffins, which I have sliced and tossed and toasted. This way, one may dip the bread into the yolk. It is quite an amusing endeavour!

It is my hope that Your Majesty will enjoy the eggs to the same degree that Your Majesty has enjoyed other things. [http://ca.hellomagazine.com/imagenes/royalty/2013090814482/the-queen-prince-philip-braemar-games/0-73-836/queen-1–z.jpg]

Your most faithful and obedient servant,

MattChefInTraining